Salem "Mammon" Riel
Salem "Mammon" Riel is the current Kakai of Greed and was created February 28th, 2013 by Skye. Personality The very nature of Mammon's vice is insatiable in its scope. Though he is ruled primarily by Greed, it stretches further and gropes for every other vice it can find. Other sins play a major role in Mammon's actions and decisions. Being naturally greedy, he is very prone to guarding everything he has conquered or possessed with a jealous paranoia. He is extremely proud of what he owns (be it his posse of Overminds or his Reaver), though in his mind, they are all merely possessions to be used. His Reaver may become the exception to this rule. He may fly into a frenetic rage when he feels others are encroaching on his property. And being greedy only goes hand in hand with his desire to have, to consume, to own everything around him, be it land, opportunity or even people. He may frequently lust after that – or those – which he cannot have. This may even include another Kakai's Reaver. Mammon is not content with having one, rules be damned. At his core, he is incredibly obsessed with conquering. Achieving. Gaining advantage. Everything that attracts him, he wants and has to have. It can lead to rashness and the more desperate he grows in failing to acquire something he wants, the more reckless he will become. If he could, he would reach out and place a stamp of ownership over everything around him. Tie chains around everything in his vicinity and lock it away for himself. It is for this reason that he has metal cuffs made for his Reaver, bearing his insignia. God help those who disregard it. They're not simply for marking his Reaver to the world, however. They serve to remind the Reaver who they belong to. Despite his obvious flaws, Mammon is not an unreasonable man. He is well aware of his part in Satan's plan, but he has goals of his own: he wishes to have control, as much as he can, over a beautiful earth, and he is working to leave a mark of himself wherever he travels. He finds it useless to ravage and destroy. How can one conquer that which no longer exists? What is the point of going after nothing? Every action Mammon executes has a driving force behind it. He is never wasteful, because that will diminish his assets. He preserves and protects what (or who) he owns, and this includes any human in his favour. He will watch out for their safety and mental well-being (as long as it doesn't clash with his own), and should anything threaten them, he will take it as a personal challenge to correct or eradicate the problem. He is a dry-humoured man, extremely amiable in demeanor when he needs to be. His personality adapts itself to those he is around. When around fellow Kakai, he will be careful with what he says, but nevertheless recognize them as his allies and treat them with the respect earned by each. He sees them as players in the same game as himself, while other Overminds, humans and Reavers are mere pawns. Lesser than him. He bends others to his will through his Hypnokinetic ability (see Weapons) and his own natural charisma. Violence is reserved for those who cross him. Insatiably curious as he is greedy, Mammon is obsessed with learning about and tasting the world around him. He originally began keeping human "pets" so he could learn from them, and now he sees the earth as what it is: a dying creation. He is eager to hold onto whatever of it he can and preserve it for his perusal and enjoyment. His humans are, in a way, zoo exhibits. Snapshots of a world long lost. Certainly not friends. He will frequently favour humans proficient in any fine arts. Music endlessly fascinates him. Human culture is a craving he can never satisfy, no matter how many humans he manages to procure. He is fairly amiable with most of what he owns...at least until they cross him or break promises. Being a proud man, he can easily take slights where they might not even exist. Be it his Reaver or a fellow Overmind, Mammon will be wrathful in his backlash to any who he believes have wronged him. When angered, he has little limits to cruelty. He is in favour of using his ability to make others torment themselves, or simply resorting to open violence. Making a pass at anything he considers his is the easiest way to incur his enmity, and Mammon holds grudges longer than felines. History Mammon was sent to earth shortly around the time when the plague first manifested. He mingled with the evacuating masses of Michigan, created to fit in with the largely Middle-Eastern population. Back then, he was a regular, unranked Overmind of Greed, just trying to fit in as one of the good guys. Having a love for literature, Mammon spent time reading up on human history and culture. He chose his own name, liking its place in history and relation to human superstition. Before this, he had been going by temporary names adopted every time he hung around with a human group. By his nature, he was – and still is – a chameleon. Very much fond of taking on another race's ideas, Mammon played at being a survivor long enough to gain enough knowledge of this new world he had been placed in. He connected with rogue humans for a while, always being careful to make Lessers in the vicinity treat him as they would a human, before meeting up with his own kind, Overminds who were just as curious about the world as he. They established a network of their own, each a researcher in his or her own way. Mammon and his new friends liked to experiment on humans, understand the human psyche, liked to explore human culture and try and envision it as it once had been. They were a brutal, cold and clinical group, and they spread out around North America, taking over small pockets of land as areas of their own, each a miniature "kingdom" enforced by a band of minion Overminds and Reavers; working together, these Overminds were deadly to anything that stood in their way. They divided survivors (without their knowledge) over each area; no one would attack a survivor "belonging" to another Overmind. Most were guided by Greed or Gluttony and occasionally Envy. They worked as allies but were all aware they were really competing for who had more of this ravished world. Who had the less hideous pieces, the beautiful museums, parks, apartments. And here is where Mammon's Sin reared its ugly head. He had moved around seeking new places to gain, till he reached Louisiana. There was a dispute over a part of New Orleans. Mammon, enjoying New Orleans' link to American theater and literature, had discovered that one of his allies had uncovered a library mostly untouched by the apocalyptic destruction. Blazing with envy, Mammon claimed the area had been under his own land, that the other Overmind had been a stranger trespassing on a city already occupied by his kin. When all else failed and the other Overmind kept the relic, Mammon sent some of his closer allies and their Reavers to burn the library down in a fit of jealous rage. What he didn't count on was that his reputation as a cunning and lethal partner was already earning him invisible enemies. The other Overmind, rightfully enraged, set about turning one of Mammon's allies against him. They caught Mammon unawares one night when he was out strolling his claimed land, and killed and beheaded him. When he was sent back again, aching for revenge and not at all ashamed to have died for his Sin, Mammon was in New Jersey. He had lost his claimed land and his collected harem of Overminds and Reavers. This didn't deter him much; he had all the time in the world. New Jersey didn't play out much better than New Orleans. By the end of 2009, Mammon had to be resurrected again, having lost his second life at the hands of a jealous partner and sometime lover. Maybe he should have hidden his growing disinterest in her a tad better, but nothing he could do about it now. During 2010, he headed into Canada, lost another life after getting into a dispute after he killed an Overmind and stole his Reaver. His Reaver ended up killing him out of utter hatred for Mammon and agony for her beloved dead master. When he returned at the start of 2011, he met up with a new ally, Gregory Graham, an Overmind led by unbridled lust and curiosity. The two were extremely compatible and began working alongside each other on experimenting and exploring humans. They shared the same obsessive interest in human psyche and culture. They both read to satisfy their cravings about the old world. Mammon also spent his time building up a following again, contacting old allies and trying to re-establish what he’d lost. And yet, the more time he spent with Greg, the more discontent he grew. Greg was a powerful Overmind, with much accumulated wealth, dozens of allies and partners and above all, a Reaver. Always wanting what he didn’t or couldn’t have, Mammon decided he wanted Greg’s lifestyle. It would take too much effort to construct his own. But how to go about doing it? The easiest way would be to get rid of Greg. But Greg was always surrounded. And so, Mammon sent his envoys out to the major spots Greg had a “base” of operations in, wanting to execute a voluntary takeover. It took a lot of espionage to uncover these locations, but his envoys returned empty-handed, saying Greg’s allies had refused to give up the bases and betray him. Mammon defaulted to his usual M.O when he couldn’t get what he wanted. If he couldn’t have it, burn it down. Greg had people on his side, so the execution of Mammon’s plan to destroy him took him a good few months, watching and carefully planning how to circumvent Greg’s caution. Mammon bribed some of his new allies with promises to share the spoils of this new endeavour (a lie as there would be no spoils left to share) and had them visit each of Greg’s properties. Simultaneously, they were burned down and the last was the home Greg was currently staying in with his Reaver Ericka. Mammon set the house ablaze and had his playthings go searching for Ericka; he doubted she would enter a burning home. Reavers were not immortal. They went off and he watched the burning structure collapse, hoping it would take Greg out of his sight. Only it didn’t. Ericka hadn’t been home, and she returned in time to rush inside and drag her master out. Mammon hadn’t understood the Reaver bond, having never had a Reaver of his own, and he had underestimated how far she would go to save her master. She was badly burnt, but it didn’t stop her from attacking him in vengeful rage. He was no match for a Reaver. She struck him a killing blow and he suddenly found himself back in Hell with nothing to show for his efforts but a burning ache for revenge. It was mid-2012. Once again, Mammon was returned by a rather exasperated Satan to the earth. Yet this time was different. Mammon had never looked forward to returning so much before. Because all four of his past deaths had been fueled by his inability to tamp down his insatiable greed for everything and more, Satan granted him the title of Mammon. It was ironic, but he had Greg to thank for this. He could hardly wait to live up to it. Now he struck toward Fort York, gathering interesting Overminds he met along the way and schmoozing or brainwashing them into agreeing to tag along. He was a Kakai now; it was far easier to paint grand pictures for his hungry subordinates. He knew well enough that his hypnokinesis was temporary; he truly needed these minions of Satan to believe in him and so he spent time building their trust in him. He had a tendency to make people feel like they were the most important being in his life whenever he spoke to them, and this greatly aided him now. On his march to Fort York, he rekindled his interest in human culture. One of his men had captured a young human female. Mammon, uncharacteristically, decided to spare her from a traumatizing fate and inevitable death. He very rarely found a human in his home alive; he very rarely gave much thought to them when he went out to eat. This human was the first of many that he kept with him, under the wing of his protection. With joviality and charm, he gained her trust; he had no intention to harm her. He merely wished to learn more about the world he was in and who better than a human? There were many things no book would ever be able to explain to him. And perhaps, he was tiring of only having two races catering to him. It would be amusing to add humans and perhaps Vampyres to his collection. However many friends or human favourites he might have about him, Mammon was always guarded. He changed personas depending on who he was around; it was impossible to understand who the real Mammon was. No one was ever close enough to truly know him, and so it was easy for him to view them as his assets, rather than friends or allies. And this suited him just fine. People were hard to deal with; possessions were not. When he arrived in Fort York, he noticed with delight that there was no system of asset division in place. Mammon was lacking a Reaver, and that was the second thing he needed to fix. The first was procuring a home base. He chose an out-of-town manor home, its vast swimming pool now a swamp of dead leaves and mud, its hallways dusty and echoing. He tasked his new human toys to set it straight while he sought out Overminds to join his harem. It was never too early to start making friends and conning them. Old habit was hard to break. Currently, Mammon is seeking a Reaver. His eye is naturally drawn to those already claimed by his allies and partners. He will attempt, and probably fail, to restrain himself. Category:Characters Category:Overminds Category:Males Category:Active